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The workshop breathed in its usual way—softly, mechanically, alive with restrained power. Repulsor cores pulsed like distant heartbeats, diagnostic holograms drifted lazily through the air, and the scent of warm metal and ozone lingered on everything. Beyond the reinforced glass walls of the compound, the landscape stretched wide and quiet, all open sky and distant tree lines, clouds hanging low as if undecided whether to break into a storm or maintain the uneasy calm a little longer.
Steve sat on the couch Tony had insisted on keeping in the workshop, claiming that “genius requires comfortable brooding surfaces.” The leather was cracked and familiar, and Steve had claimed the same corner he always did, one leg folded under him, the other stretched out, his sketchbook balanced on his knee.
His pencil glided across the paper.
Sort of.
Lines appeared, then vanished beneath the soft rasp of the eraser. Shadows were smudged into shapes that never quite became anything. If someone had been watching closely, they would’ve noticed the way his grip tightened every few seconds, the way his jaw clenched as if he were bracing for impact.
Steve wasn’t drawing anything.
He was remembering.
Three times.
Three times he had tried to propose.
The first time was weeks after Sokovia, when the sky still felt too close and the ground too fragile, as if the world were a battlefield frozen mid-explosion, with every step threatening to restart the fighting. Cities were being rebuilt, but people weren’t— not really. The Avengers moved around each other like survivors of the same shipwreck, careful and quiet, pretending that nothing fundamental had changed, while all of them felt the truth vibrating beneath their skin.
Tony had been different then. Still brilliant, still sharp, but now his humor had edges—biting instead of soothing. His smiles arrived too late, his laughter faded too quickly, and his eyes... his eyes looked exhausted in a way sleep could never fix. Steve saw it all. He always did. It was the soldier in him—the habit of reading microexpressions, noticing stress and strain, and sensing when someone was bracing for impact even while pretending to stand at ease.
Steve had bought the ring anyway.
He told himself it was hope, that love could be an anchor in the wreckage, something solid enough to hold them steady while the rest of the world reeled. But late at night, when Tony finally slept and Steve lay awake staring at the ceiling, doubt crept in. Wanda’s voice echoed in his mind, soft yet merciless, and the vision she’d shown him pressed in from all sides.
He remembered the darkness she’d dragged out of him—the endless war, the faceless enemies, the way his hands never stopped being weapons. He remembered the moment he’d realized, with sickening clarity, that there was something inside him that didn’t know how to stop fighting, something that might never fit into a life built on peace. A man frozen in time, dragging the past forward with every step.
What sort of future could he provide for Tony Stark?
Tony, who already carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Tony, who wanted to build an armor around the world because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t. Steve wondered, in his quietest moments, whether asking Tony to marry him was just another way of asking him to carry Steve too—to shoulder his ghosts, his violence, and his unending sense of duty.
Still, he bought the ring, because despite everything, Steve wanted to believe that love could be stronger than the darkness within him—that Tony saw more than just the soldier, more than the damage.
He had planned it carefully—too carefully—because if he stopped planning, he might start thinking about Tony’s answer. A rooftop at sunset, the city softly glowing below them, warm wind brushing through their hair. He had rehearsed the words endlessly, in his head and in front of the mirror, steadying his voice and preparing himself for whatever Tony might say.
Then a HYDRA cell reappeared in Latvia, and Tony left mid-sentence.
Steve still remembered how the armor had slammed around Tony’s body, metal closing with a finality that felt personal. The repulsors had flared, bright and blinding, and then Tony was gone—already heading toward the next crisis, the next thing that needed fixing.
Steve had stood there alone, the ring heavy in his pocket, Wanda’s vision tightening around his heart.
Maybe the universe wasn’t just interrupting him randomly.
Perhaps it was reminding him of who he was.
A soldier. A weapon. A man molded by war.
And maybe—Steve thought, watching the empty sky where Tony had disappeared—someone like that doesn’t get to ask for forever.
The second time was after everything with Bucky.
That one still ached the most.
It wasn’t the truth itself that broke everything between them—it was the silence beforehand.
Steve had known. He carried that knowledge like a live wire under his skin, waiting for the right moment, the right words. He told himself Tony was already drowning in grief and guilt, and adding more pain would only break him. Then there was Clint’s farm—a quiet evening, shared beers, the kind of fragile peace that only comes after surviving disaster. They talked that night, truly talked, about monsters, darkness, and the things that live inside them.
Tony had opened the door.
Steve hadn’t gone through it.
So, when Steve finally told him—standing in this very workshop, voice trembling as he admitted that the Winter Soldier had killed Howard and Maria Stark, and that HYDRA had turned Bucky into a weapon through torture without a choice or memories—Tony’s anger wasn’t about who pulled the trigger.
It had been around the time when Steve chose to speak.
Tony had become very still, the way he did when something hurt so deeply that it was hard to process all at once. Then came the shouting afterward—raw and sharp, grief colliding with betrayal. Tony hadn’t accused Steve of protecting Bucky.
He accused him of not trusting him.
He had the chance to tell him at the farm, when the world was quiet and they were honest with each other—and he chose to stay silent instead.
But there had also been the aftermath.
Silence, yes. Distance. Space carved out of necessity rather than anger. Tony had mourned his parents all over again, with the truth reshaping memories he thought were already set in stone. And Steve had stayed. He hadn’t defended himself. He hadn’t justified the delay. He had let Tony rage, break things, fall apart, and grieve in whatever way he needed.
They hadn’t broken.
Somehow—slowly, painfully, impossibly—they had held on.
The second proposal had been planned for after that—after the truth, after the healing. Steve had imagined it as a promise to the future—a hand extended forward, saying not just that they had survived, but that they would build something gentler from the wreckage, that whatever darkness came next, they would face it side by side.
Then Ultron’s lingering code surfaced in an abandoned server farm halfway across the world.
The third time—
Steve’s pencil snapped.
He looked down at the shattered graphite, his chest tightening.
The third time was last month. Everything finally settled down. No immediate threats. No secrets between them. Tony had laughed more. Steve slept better. It felt safe and peaceful.
Too peaceful.
Steve convinced himself that the universe was merely setting the stage, adjusting the lights and scenery while he stood there, mistaken for an audience member instead of a soldier. He recognized that quiet—the deceptive calm that settles in just before orders come down, before the first shot is fired. It’s the moment when you're tempted to relax, to believe the fighting is over, to let your guard down. And that’s when everything goes wrong. So, he waited, muscles tense beneath his skin, certain that as soon as he allowed himself to believe in this peace, the curtain would rise again and the next scene would start—with him back in uniform, shield raised, bracing for impact.
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the page, his breath shallow.
Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence.
Maybe it was a warning.
He’d lived long enough to realize that happiness was fragile. Borrowed. Something you held gently because it could be taken away at any moment. And after everything—after the blood on his hands, the choices he’d made, the people he’d failed—maybe he didn’t get to keep something this good.
Maybe he didn’t deserve Tony Stark.
His hand drifted to the pocket of his hoodie before he deliberately decided to act. The velvet ring box was warm from his body heat, familiar and heavy. He took it out and held it in his palm, turning it slowly; the fabric was worn smooth from too many nervous spins.
The ring inside was simple, by Stark standards. A gold band, smooth and modest, with a small blue stone embedded in it—neither flashy nor loud. Just quietly steady. Like Tony, when he allowed himself to be.
Steve swallowed.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he murmured to no one. “You faced Nazis. Aliens. A murder robot with a god complex.”
But none of those had ever terrified him as this did. The possibility of being rejected by the one person who made all of it worth surviving.
A gentle mechanical whirring interrupted his spiraling thoughts.
Steve looked up just as DUM-E rolled into view, its optic lens glowing with eager curiosity. The little robot paused, reached out with its claw to him, and emitted a questioning beep.
“Don’t,” Steve said immediately, lowering the ring box slightly. “This is… important.”
DUM-E beeped again, brighter this time, and rolled closer.
Steve sighed. “DUM-E, no—”
Too late.
The robot lunged with unexpected speed, its claw snapping shut around the ring box and snatching it right out of Steve’s hand. While Steve froze, staring at his now-empty palm, DUM-E spun around triumphantly, chirping happily as if he had just completed the most important mission of his life, then hurried across the workshop.
“Oh, come on,” Steve groaned, scrambling to his feet. “DUM-E! Stop!”
DUM-E did not stop.
Steve hurried after him, boots slipping slightly on the polished concrete, heart pounding in his chest as the robot headed straight for Tony, who was elbow-deep in an Iron Man gauntlet upgrade, sparks flying as he adjusted the repulsor housing.
“DUM-E, that’s not a toy!” Steve called. “That’s—give that back!”
Steve lunged after him, but his foot caught on the edge of a box he hadn’t noticed sitting in front of the couch.
The world sharply tilted, and the balance was gone in an instant. Steve flailed his arms, boots sliding uselessly against the floor as momentum took him forward. His knee crashed into the box, causing it to skid across the floor and the lid to pop loose.
Art supplies spilled all over the place.
Sketchbooks slid across the concrete, graphite sticks clattered and rolled under worktables, erasers bounced and vanished into shadows, and pastels shattered into soft bursts of color. Steve barely managed to hook his fingers around the arm of the couch before he went down completely, breathing hard as his heart hammered in his chest.
He looked down at the chaos scattered all over the floor.
“Great,” he muttered. “Perfect. Just… perfect.”
DUM-E paused, turned around, and emitted a worried little beep—then quickly knocked over another box of supplies with a seemingly casual swing of his arm before continuing his escape.
Steve groaned and called after the robot. “DUM-E, please!”
But DUM-E was already halfway across the workshop, wheels whining softly as he headed straight for Tony, who stood with his back turned, framed by the open chest plate of the Iron Man suit, muttering under his breath as his hands moved with practiced ease—too focused to notice anything else while tools clinked and clattered across the worktable.
The next moment, DUM-E rolled up behind Tony and prodded his leg with persistent determination.
“Hey, buddy,” Tony said absently, not looking up. "I'm a little busy trying not to blow my arm off—”
DUM-E pushed the velvet ring box under Tony’s nose and shook it excitedly.
Tony froze.
For a long moment, the only sounds in the workshop were the hum of machinery and the faint hiss of cooling metal.
Then Tony slowly straightened, his eyes flicking from the ring box to DUM-E, then across the workshop to Steve, who stood amid a chaos of art supplies, shoulders slumped, looking like a man waiting for a verdict.
Tony raised his eyebrows.
“…Is this,” he asked, voice carefully light, “what I think it is?”
Steve let out a long, shaky sigh. There was no escaping it now.
“Yes,” he said quietly, biting his lip. “It is.”
DUM-E chirped happily and wriggled the box again, as if urging Tony to hurry up already.
Tony’s lips slowly curved into a smile before a quiet laugh escaped him, the kind that sounded like disbelief wrapped in joy. “Well,” he said, reaching out to gently take the box from DUM-E’s claw, “someone’s been keeping secrets.”
He gave DUM-E an affectionate pat. “Good job, you little snitch.”
DUM-E emitted a triumphant series of beeps and rolled back a few inches, giving them space while keeping its optics focused on the moment, as if afraid to miss a single second of it.
Tony held the box for a heartbeat longer than necessary, turning it over in his hands as if he needed to confirm its weight and reality. Then he flipped it open.
The ring caught the workshop lights, and the small blue stone gleamed with a steady, familiar glow.
Tony’s breath hitched, the sound barely audible but unmistakable.
Steve observed every flicker of emotion crossing Tony’s face—surprise, warmth, something raw and vulnerable—and felt his knees go weak.
Tony lifted his gaze to Steve, eyes bright and unguarded, as if the moment had stripped everything else away—no armor, no sarcasm, just the quiet weight of what was being offered and the certainty of who was offering it. “You know,” he said gently, “most people propose before the robot does.”
The comment was light and teasing—yet careful, as if he didn’t want to break the moment by pushing too hard.
Steve huffed out a shaky laugh, more breath than sound, the tension in his chest easing just enough to let it escape. “I had a whole plan,” he admitted, voice rough.
“I’m sure you did,” Tony replied, fond and knowing, as if he could already see it—warm sunset, big speeches, Steve overthinking every moment of it.
Then, instead of giving the box back, Tony took the ring out himself and held it toward Steve, palm open and steady.
“Your turn,” Tony said softly.
Steve’s breath caught, his eyes widening, heart stuttering. “Tony—”
"Steve," Tony said his name with steady warmth and certainty, grounding him completely and leaving no room for doubt. “Come here.”
Steve moved without thinking, crossing the distance on legs that barely felt like his own. His hands trembled as he took the ring, fingers grazing Tony’s skin, and that single touch grounded him instantly, keeping him firmly in the present, stable and unshakeable.
Carefully—like this mattered more than any mission he’d ever been on—Steve slid the ring onto Tony’s finger. He did it slowly, reverently, as if afraid the moment might disappear if he rushed it.
It fit perfectly.
Steve took a slow, trembling breath and closed both hands around Tony’s, his thumb repeatedly brushing over the ring, tracing its edge as if he needed the motion to believe it hadn’t disappeared the moment he looked away.
“It’s... It’s there,” he whispered, awe and disbelief tangled in his voice.
Tony’s smile softened into something fond and painfully honest. “Pretty sure it’s not imaginary, Capsicle.”
The words were gentle, but something in Steve finally broke. His shoulders drooped as months of tension, doubt, and fear all surfaced at once. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Tony leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Steve’s forehead, warm and grounding. “For what?”
Steve swallowed. “I wanted it to be perfect.”
Tony pulled back slightly to catch Steve’s gaze. “Steve.”
Hearing his name said like that—calm, confident—made Steve look up.
Tony’s expression was unusually open; grief, forgiveness, and love intertwined into something strong and unbreakable.
“It was perfect,” Tony said, soft but sure, as there had never been any doubt at all.
The words settled deep in Steve’s chest, easing something that had been knotted tight for far too long. A quiet, fractured laugh slipped from him as he pulled Tony into his arms, holding him close with a careful, almost reverent strength. He clung to him as though letting go might send the world tilting again—as if Tony were the only steady point left, the solid weight that kept him anchored in a universe that so often threatened to slip out from under his feet.
Hope—quiet, hard-won, and real—took root.
Behind them, DUM-E let out a series of pleased chirps, rolling in a small, celebratory circle as if satisfied with a job well done.
The workshop hummed softly around them, a steady, breathing presence, bearing witness not to a single moment but to a story still unfolding—one that, despite every fault line and fracture, refused to break.